Thank you all for your insight...These are all good reasons, and I inconveniences that I wouldn't have thought of. I'm glad to finally get the other side of the story. I personally wish that they would just pick one time year-round and stick with it! In answer to Hoptown's questions: Most city dwellers would be considered late sleepers...I get up at 5:00am, and I would expect that most people around here and in Washington get up about an hour after me. Technically explained, the Government's Daylight Savings Plan is based on shifting the "wasted" light in the morning (while they're sleeping) to the evening, when they can clearly use the daylight more productively, spending that valuable time riding around in golf carts, drinking martinis and brainstorming about important new laws to pass. And the savings doesn't stop there. By not having to turn the headlights on, the golf carts obviously do not have to be re-charged nearly as often, resulting in a $1.2 billion* dollar savings in electricity annually! (*Adjusted for price-gouging.) So you can see it's a simple, yet brilliant plan. And, if the Government says it saves us money, we should believe them...They've never lied to us before, right? ;) Take care, all.

*Completely off topic- dedtired, I knew you meant thing when you wrote thong. But I once made the same typo with my boss and the sentence was as follows: " I just have to get the thong notarized and I will get it to you as soon as I do that " So glad she was able to laugh as hard as I was! And yay, warm weather, flowers blooming, birds chirping- I just love the change of seasons. Even if we had a mild winter- I completely did not mind not having to trek to work in the snow this year. The first year in the last 12 years that I can remember not having to do that. Now bring on the sunlight!! :)

I love the extra light in the evening so much that giving up that hour of sleep seems a fair trade. Thanks to the first days of DST coinciding with warm weather, my garden is now mostly organized. At this time of year it was just cleanup and window washing, but everything looks so much better and now is nearly ready for planting. The extra light even moved us to go buy seeds, despite not being able plant outside for another month. I also have the feeling that extra energy I'm feeling will let me do more inside too, although this week it turned out to be projects that generated more stuff to organize. I agree that extra warmth is key, but for me it has to be combined with light. We may well save electricity because we are turning on the lights an hour later, and it's not offset by mornings because the household members who get up before it's light don't take an hour to get ready. But what I don't get is how my pets know to bug me for dinner by the clock rather than 24 hours after their last dinner.

Poor Hubby. We call the time change his national holiday--he's got SO many clocks to change in our house. And this year, with 2 houses--he's going to go nuts. Perfect timing this year, though--the day after Halloween, so the little ghosts and goblins can trick or treat while it's still light. I like the time change, too. Not sure exactly how to explain it, but it makes the days 'right'.